Research Summaries
Current Research Projects
Project Wings
Baylor TIP is collaborating with St. John’s University to develop the mathematics skills of high potential English learner students in grades kindergarten through four. This after-school enrichment program seeks to develop strong mathematics skills using an advanced curriculum focusing on math concepts and problem-solving skills. Waco ISD hosts the program across several elementary schools. Dr. Todd Kettler serves as the site coordinator and a member of the research team with Dr. Seokhee Cho and Dr. Jenny Yang from St. Johns. The project is funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Jacob Javits Grant. Waco is one of four sites along with New York City Schools, Los Angeles Unified School District, and Richardson ISD in the greater Dallas area.
Transformational Opportunities: The Project Promise Multiple-Case Study
For more than 40 years, Baylor's Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development has hosted summer programs for high-ability students in grades 1-12. In 1999, with a combination of internal and external funding, the Center established Project Promise, a scholarship program that enables local high-ability students with limited financial resources to attend its programs. Project Promise allows students to attend classes for free, and transportation is provided for those who need it. In addition, each student is assigned to a mentor who provides personalized support to help prepare the student for success in post-secondary education. The current multiple-case study aims to assess the impact of the program on 12 high school students who have participated in Project Promise since elementary school.
Assessing Creative Pedagogy in Higher Education
How do you measure creative teaching in college? In the early 2000s Alencar and Fleith developed the Teaching Practices Inventory, which has students rate their professor in four areas of creative pedagogy: incentive to generate new ideas, safe climate for the expression of ideas, teaching and evaluating creativity, and commitment to student learning. Although early assessments of the scale were positive, after its initial development it was not used again. In spring of 2023 we launched a new study to conduct item analyses and scale validity. In phase 1 we made minor modifications to the scale while confirming the latent variable structure. Now in Phase 2, we are applying an innovative mixed-method design to study the scale's construct validity. Ultimately, we hope this scale can be used to support instructors who want to develop and implement more creative pedagogies.
Achievement Effects Associated with Gifted Education: A Statewide Analysis of AP Testing
Gifted and talented students in Texas are those students who perform or show the potential for performing at a remarkably high level of accomplishment compared to their general education peers. While that Texas policy definition has existed for almost 50 years, little empirical work has estimated the level of performance that might be characterized as a remarkably high level of accomplishment. Using College Board’s Advanced Placement (AP) performance data, this Texas statewide analysis estimated what we tentatively define as a gifted and talented achievement effect, d = 20.14. Gifted students take more AP exams, earn more qualifying scores (3+), and have a higher proportion of exam scores at 3 or higher than their peers who are not identified as gifted. We tested for moderation effects associated with school type (rural, town, suburban, and urban) across 439 school districts and found no moderation or differences across school types. The superior performance of gifted students compared to students not identified as gifted who also took AP exams was similar across rural, town, suburban, and urban areas of Texas.
Creativity Bias in Educators
Do educators hold misunderstandings about creativity? In this study we collected data from more than 250 pre-service and in-service educators. We found that the majority of educators did not endorse creativity misunderstandings. We also found that believing that creativity was a fixed ability unable to be grown predicted having misunderstandings about creativity. This study highlights how educators' beliefs about creativity can predict their misunderstandings of creativity. Better understandings of how teachers think about creativity informs how we develop professional learning and training toward more creative pedagogies.
Parental Burnout among Parents of GT Students
Are gifted parents burned out? Raising a child with an exceptionality, such as a disability or illness, is associated with greater rates of parental burnout. Another type of exceptionality is giftedness. However, the etiology and rate of parental burnout among parents of gifted children has not been studied. The balance between risk and resource theory (BR2) of parental burnout proposes that parental burnout is due to chronic stress from the chronic imbalance between risks and resources. The present study tested this theory among parents of gifted children by recruiting and administering the parental burnout assessment, perceived stress scale, social support index and a demographic questionnaire. We conducted an ordinal logistic regression, to predict parental burnout from perceived stress, social support and demographics. Stress increased the probability of experiencing parental burnout, supporting the BR2 theory of parental burnout that stress leads to burnout. Neither social support nor demographic factors significantly changed the odds ratio of experiencing parental burnout.
Rethinking Academic Potential in a Talent Development Framework
Talent development models of gifted education encourage broader assessment protocols to identify students with high academic potential. While psychological variables have been associated with achievement and performance, they are rarely used in gifted identification assessment. We tested three psychological variables’ association with college readiness, testing achievement in a two-study, cross-sectional design with 474 students in grades four through nine. Collectively the three psychological variables accounted for between 3% and 20% of the variation in achievement. Need for cognition was the most robust predictor, followed by the achievement striving facet of conscientiousness. The self-discipline aspect of conscientiousness demonstrated no relationship with standardized-test achievement. The psychological variables also demonstrated meaningful fairness as there were no group differences in the mean scores across race and ethnicity.
The Prominence of Interest and Challenge in Advanced Learning Designs
Gentry’s My Class Activities scale was designed to evaluate how high ability students experienced their learning environments in school by utilizing a latent variable assessment model with four factors: interest, challenge, choice, and enjoyment. Eventually, the use of the scale was extended from in-school learning to out-of-school learning environments. In this project, we used the scale to understand which of the four factors are most associated with summer program impact. In our first study, we found that interest, challenge, and choice accounted for 46% of the variance in summer program impact with gifted middle school and high school students. In our second study, we used the same scale with more than 600 elementary and middle school gifted students in an out-of-school learning environment. The same three factors accounted for 49% of the variance in program impact. Challenge and interest were consistently the most robust predictors of positive program impact across both studies. Practically, these studies suggest that gifted students find their learning programs most impactful when the content is both interesting and challenging.
Creative Pedagogy Project
The Lab team has been working on a conceptual model of creative pedagogy. The model begins with teachers’ knowledge and beliefs about creativity. Teachers’ knowledge includes formal and informal training on how to use creativity strategies or creative teaching models to intentionally develop students’ creative thinking and problem-solving skills. Teachers’ beliefs include desirability of teaching for creativity, creative self-efficacy, creativity biases, and productive creative mindsets. The model culminates in teachers’ effective use of the three-component creative pedagogy model developed by Linn (2011) where creative pedagogy includes: teaching for creativity, creative teaching, and creative learning. The research goal for the creative pedagogy project is to identify the knowledge, beliefs, and behaviors that are necessary for effective implementation of creative pedagogy.
Assessment of Creative Potential
Exceptional academic performance is the student outcome primarily studied in the Lab applying our framework, the science of exceptional performance. One aspect of exceptional academic performance is creative thinking and creative problem solving. In collaboration with Todd Lubart, Maud Besançon, and Baptiste Barbot, Dr. Kettler is developing an English version of the Évaluation du Potentiel Créatif (EPoC or Evaluation of Creative Potential) with United States norms. The EPoC assessment is used in multiple languages around the world, and our team is leading the project for the assessment’s use in the United States. Similarly, we have been developing the Student Index of Creative Behaviors to measure baselines and growth in students’ creative performances in school. Our two-part goal of this work is to both find and develop creative potential in students and help schools measure growth in student creativity over time.
Academic Self-Concept among Gifted Adolescents
Academic self-concept (ASC) refers to an individual’s perception and evaluation of their own abilities, skills, and potential in an academic or educational context. It can be a pivotal factor in education due to its influence on motivation, academic achievement, and student well-being. The significance of ASC is particularly pronounced in gifted students, who possess advanced cognitive abilities and distinctive academic experiences that differentiate their educational trajectories from those of their non-gifted peers. Findings on sex differences in academic self-concept are inconclusive among all adolescents as well as the target-population of gifted adolescents. Additionally, it is not clear whether gifted/high cognitive ability adolescents experience an adolescent dip in academic self-concept that has been found in general adolescent populations. The purpose of this project is to test whether sex differences and adolescent declines in ASC exist in a sample of gifted students in early to mid-adolescence.
Academic Domains and Gender Stereotypes among Gifted Students
This study examines the persistent gender and grade differences in subject preferences among gifted students. Despite societal shifts towards gender equality, traditional gender stereotypes may still influence educational choices among high-ability students. In the study, there are 675 gifted students attending summer enrichment programs in the United States as a sample. Chi-square tests of independence were employed to analyze the relationships between gender, grade level, and subject preferences. The findings reveal significant gender differences, with boys favoring math and science, and girls showing a stronger preference for art/music and reading, aligning with traditional gender stereotypes. Additionally, subject preferences vary across grades, with math and art/music remaining consistently popular, while science and social studies gain interest in middle school years. The study concludes that gender and grade level significantly influence subject preferences among gifted students.